April 11, 1895 — Hudson's House, Bartonburg

His fingers kept finding the vial in his pocket, running his thumb idly over the cork that kept it closed. It felt more important than it was. Don Juan wasn't going to take it, so it didn't matter that it was still in his coat pocket, but every few minutes since Hansen had pressed it into his palm he found himself checking to see if it was still there. He didn't know what precisely was in it, but he knew Hansen well enough — knew the expression on his face when he gave it to Don Juan well enough — to know it would leave him throwing up. It was almost certainly an opium tincture, at least at the base. Based on how pleased with himself Hansen had looked when he produced it, Don Juan might have guessed that it had something else to it besides. Mild hallucinogen, maybe, or a potion of some sort. It didn't matter what was in it if he wasn't going to take it, so he needn't expend any energy trying to figure it out, but still every time the conversation at the party lulled enough for his thoughts to wander they wandered there, to the vial in his pocket and whatever it contained. He'd broken a fleck of the cork off with his thumb from worrying it too much; now the top was no longer a neat circle.

Hansen disappeared from the event less than an hour after he'd talked with Don Juan. He probably wasn't going to be seen again that night. Don Juan stayed, increasingly aware of his sobriety. He would have left earlier except that he'd already made plans with Dean that night for a certain time and he wasn't sure whether he might be interrupting anything if he arrived earlier. Dean wasn't at this party, but he might be at another one. One with Hanna at it, maybe.

When it was finally time he made his excuses and flooed home, then turned back immediately and went to Hudson's. The parlor was empty, so Don Juan took the opportunity to start disrobing — shoes by the end table, coat thrown over the couch. "Hudson," he called, in case the noise of his arrival hadn't been enough to alert him. "Did you eat already? I'm famished. You wouldn't believe the things they had at this party — barely edible, I swear."

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Dean Hudson

  

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MJ made this <3

It had been a long week and Dean had a pent up energy he thought to exorcise with a good long run. He'd started right after getting home, fearing if he sat, he'd lose the motivation, and the longer he was gone, the better he felt. With the park reopened, he'd stuck to the side paths so as not to bother anyone on their evening strolls, but it had been good for him. Seeing the lake reminded him that once it got warmer he could add swimming to the routine if he felt the need. By the time he'd gotten home, he was dripping in sweat and his muscles felt spent and sore, so he'd plunged into the bath and let himself relax for a bit. He felt energized, but in a much better way now and his thoughts had circled back around to a manageable place.

He was just stepping out of the bathroom, towel slung around his hips and another in his hands to dry his hair when he heard Don Juan call up. He leaned casually on the railing of the second floor and looked down toward the parlor door. "I think there's something in the icebox, I haven't eaten yet either." Dean wasn't entirely sure that was the case, but usually he was left something if he wasn't home when his housekeeper left for the weekend. "If not I can make something." His repertoire mostly consisted of breakfast foods, and there had to be something for cold sandwiches, but he was perfectly capable of making some pasta too, he was pretty sure he still had some.

Waiting for Don Juan to appear in the hallway, he ran the smaller towel in his hands over his head, trying to dry the unruly mess of curls that surely needed a trim sooner rather than later.

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Don Juan followed the sound of Hudson's voice as far as the base of the stairs and grinned up at him. The sight of Hudson in only a towel was almost enough to temp him away from the idea of food, at least for a while. It also left him feeling distinctly overdressed.

"You may live to regret giving me free reign of your kitchen," he teased, then pulled himself away from the base of the stairs and in that direction before he could properly change his mind. He was hungry, and knew if he went upstairs first he'd probably put off eating another few hours at least. That wasn't to say he couldn't keep undressing, though; in addition to his abandoned coat and shoes he worked off his vest and necktie, then his socks.

"Nothing in this icebox looks half so delicious as you do," he called, teasing, as he examined the contents. There was indeed some meat already sliced, and even Don Juan was capable enough in the kitchen to put the ingredients of a sandwich between pieces of bread, so he removed that.

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MJ made this <3

Dean thought he might have changed Dempsey's mind about hitting the kitchen first, but as soon as Don Juan detoured that way, Dean pushed off the railing and into his bedroom. Still warm from the bath, he pulled on a loose pair of linen pants from Greece and tossed a shirt over his head, but left it unbuttoned. After tossing the towels back into the bathroom he padded down the stairs. He hit the bottom of the stairs chuckling, seeing the trail of discarded clothing items as he followed to the kitchen.

"Yes well," he leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed comfortably, watching Don Juan putter around with a bemused smirk. Underneath that, he was contented by the image before him and the fact that Don Juan was comfortable enough in the house again to make himself at home. Positively domestic was the term thrown around before. It fit and it felt good.

"One hunger at a time." Dean shrugged, still smirking. "Find anything good?"

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"You'll have to wait and see," he responded. It was a teasing tone, but he was hedging too in case he ended up botching even sandwiches somehow. He was sure he could at least come up with something edible, and if it was too terrible surely Dean could rescue the situation. Don Juan would look cute through it regardless, which was his approach to cooking and also to any skill he didn't expect to be especially good at.

"Don't supervise," he said, chiding as though he hadn't had Dean's view from the doorway in mind when he had bent over just now to retrieve the cheese. "Go relax on the couch or something."

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MJ made this <3

"And miss the show? Hardly." He scoffed lightly, holding in his place in the doorway. The view was certainly something he could appreciate. He supposed he could go pour drinks, but that was easy to do closer to when the were going to sit down. Normally he was on the other side of these sorts of situations, so he figured he may as well enjoy the role-reversal.

Running a hand through his damp hair in an attempt to keep the waves from getting frizzy too easily, he moved to sit at the little kitchen table, cocking the chair so he could continue to watch. "What kind of party doesn't have good food?" He asked sarcastically, moreso to tease Don Juan than to ascertain what he'd been up to this evening. Dean had forced himself to relax about whatever it was Don Juan got up when they weren't spending time together. Being constantly worried about it last time hadn't helped anything and this time, well, it wasn't as big of a concern that Don Juan was getting into some kind of trouble. (Dean knew very well that Don Juan was capable of trouble other than getting high, but still.)

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"Plenty of them, if you have a sophisticated palette," he returned, cheeky. He was indeed generally used to high-quality food, and sometimes large parties could fall short in a variety of ways, particularly if they tried to use the same kitchen staff who usually didn't have to prepare such large quantities and try to keep it all fresh and warm at the same time. Catering an event and cooking a dinner were different skills, and Don Juan didn't have to have any aptitude in either of them to appreciate that.

He regretted having given Dean something of a show before, now that he was sitting at the table. He didn't relish the idea of being continuously observed while he tried to do something he wasn't good at — much harder to look consistently adorable. Don Juan retrieved the bread and a knife, but hesitated before slicing it. "You could make yourself useful and get us drinks, or something," he suggested, gesturing gently with the knife. He had a feeling his first attempt at cutting this bread was going to look more like a lopsided pyramid than a slice. Was this even the right knife? Dean had, in his inexpert opinion, more knives in his collection than ought to be necessary, and Don Juan didn't really understand why some were shaped differently.

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MJ made this <3

He was thoroughly amused right now, but thought he might possibly be making Don Juan a little nervous. "Alright, alright." He sighed as he hefted himself out of the chair he'd just gotten comfortable in. He sauntered up behind Don Juan and slid the current knife in his hand out lightly and put it back in the block, pulling out the serrated knife instead. "You'll have better luck with that," he mused, planting a kiss on Don Juan's neck before easing back out of the kitchen.

Pleased with himself, Dean moved down the hall, bending to pick up the discarded clothing items along the way. Not that he was expecting anyone else, but it would be pretty damning evidence if someone did happen to pop by. Spotting Don Juan's coat on the sofa, he moved to put everything together, under the coat. He picked it up and a little vial of something indeterminable fell from one of the pockets. Perplexed, Dean picked it up off the cushion and took a closer look.

Huh.

The pearlescent substance inside could only be one thing, he'd seen them before, in similar, accidental circumstances, and it gave him the same sour twist in his stomach that it had last time. Now, the real question was, why did Don Juan have it? A myriad of emotions roiled through him, each a little more unpleasant than the last. He'd been in such a good mood a moment ago. Standing there for a moment, staring at it, wondering if he should just put it back and pretend he hadn't seen it, Dean knew he wouldn't be able to forget about it either. Maybe he ought to just ask and get it out in the open. Realizing it was taking far too long to pour the whiskey, he rounded back to the sidebar to finish the task he'd intended to do, returning to the kitchen to set all three things down on the table, the two rocks glasses and the vial. Then he stepped back, still trying to process what he was feeling.

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Wrong knife. He wasn't surprised, but the one Dean gave him to replace it seemed like something from a ritual book on black magic. Why did it need so many jagged edges? In any case he was willing to take Hudson's word on it, and it seemed to be doing the job well enough. The slices were a little uneven, but serviceable enough. It made a proper mess of the cheese, but if he hid it well enough in the bread and meat maybe Hudson wouldn't notice...

Don Juan finished putting the sandwiches together as Dean wandered back in. He shot a look over his shoulder with a grin, a joke on his lips about keeping expectations low, but the expression on Dean's face chilled any attempt at joking. He couldn't entirely read Hudson's expression, but it was certainly a sharp departure from the mood a few minutes ago. Don Juan had the feeling he was in trouble even before he spotted the vial on the table. His shoulders tensed and he froze where he was. In retelling this story later (if he ever did) he might have said his mind was racing, but if that was the case it wasn't getting anywhere fast. He had stood here with cheeks flushed and eyebrows arched in surprise for several seconds and had only managed to have one coherent thought, which was that Dean probably wouldn't believe him. He hadn't even gotten so far as what he thought it was Dean wouldn't believe — that he hadn't gone out of his way to get it, that he hadn't asked for it, that he didn't know what it was, that he wasn't planning to take it, that he hadn't already taken something. Any of the above, all of the above.

"I wasn't," he managed after a long moment, but couldn't continue.

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MJ made this <3

In truth, Dean still hadn't landed on a prominent emotion as confused, frustrated, concerned and everything in between vied for dominance. Mostly he wanted an explanation. Why have something he couldn't take? Why bring it here of all places? Maybe he'd been operating on the false hope that the longer Don Juan went without the substances, the less he would want them in the first place, but that didn't seem to be the case or else he wouldn't even be holding on to it.

There wasn't much of an explanation, he was left hanging on two words that gave no real information. Dean positioned himself in the doorway again, leaning on one shoulder as he ran one hand over his face, along the stubble at his jaw and back up into his hair. He was trying to keep any emotions off his face, but knew he wasn't doing the best of jobs. All he could really do was raise his eyebrows and hope that Don Juan took the hint to keep going before he started filling in the gaps himself.

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   Don Juan Dempsey

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Did Dean look disappointed, or was Don Juan reading his own disappointment in himself protecting back at him? He could have gotten rid of it before he came here. There was no reason to still have it. He wasn't going to take it, but somehow in all the time he'd spent thinking about it tonight he hadn't been able to make any concrete plan to dispose of it. When his thoughts wandered they invariably did so in the other direction, contemplating what it would be like to feel it on his tongue again or trying to guess what exactly the mystery liquid might do. His fingers twitched slightly, a ghost of the gesture he'd been making all night when he reached in to his pocket to thumb the cork cap.

Dean was waiting. Don Juan had nothing to say for himself, not really. A long moment passed where he wrestled with possible explanations, but none of them got to the question he assumed Dean was silently asking: why was it here, why still have it?

"I don't know," he said eventually. His body was coiled like a spring. "Someone gave it to me and I — I just kept it in my pocket. I don't know."

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MJ made this <3

Dean hated how just the mere presence of one little vial could land them here; tense and at odds after doing well for the last couple months. He hated that he always had this little nagging thought that it would be temporary, that the results of the New Year's change would wear off and they'd wind up back where they'd left off previously. But this wasn't helping him to put it to rest either.

Most of all he hated that look on Don Juan's face and so he straightened up again and rolled his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension that had settled into his muscles. He wasn't the parent here, he was the partner and he didn't want to start a fight. Maybe he should have just left it and pretended not to see it, but he knew if he'd done that it would have festered and probably, eventually made things worse when it came out during some other frustration that was unrelated.

"Alright," he sighed eventually. Dean really didn't want to fight about it and he didn't really want to make Don Juan feel bad about it if that really was the case. Giving him the benefit of the doubt felt like the thing to do if they were going to maintain this balance that they'd found.

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When Dean rolled his shoulders Don Juan let his relax slightly as well, though his looked less intentional and more like a slump; like the anxiety had been the only thing keeping him from sagging towards a puddle. "I wasn't going to take it," he insisted. Dean hadn't asked, and then he'd said alright, but Don Juan still felt he was owed an explanation — an explanation he was still struggling to come up with, even for himself. Better to piece together whatever coherent thoughts he could than to let Dean sweep it under the rug and move on, though. They had too much experience with this. They both knew how harmful the things you never said could be. "I'm sober." Still. It was a needless assurance, as far as Don Juan was concerned, because he knew deep in his gut that if that ever changed he wasn't coming back to Hudson's place again — the last Dean saw of him would be his last days of sobriety, and then he'd end up in the sort of place in which people were not found. But maybe Dean didn't know that; maybe it bore repeating.

"People don't — know, necessarily, I guess, so this friend gave me... but I didn't ask for it, and I wasn't going to take it. I just — I just had it in my pocket all night and I didn't think — I didn't think you'd find it," he admitted, cheeks flushed. "I didn't think about how it would look. I mean I know how it looks, I do, I just didn't think. But I swear I wasn't going to do anything with it."

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MJ made this <3

Stumbling through an explanation made him feel guilty for bringing it up, but he supposed what Don Juan said made sense. If his friend circle wasn't aware (how?) that he wasn't partaking anymore, it made sense that they still offered things, but that didn't meant Don Juan had to take it. Dean didn't think he ought to bring that up though.

"I believe you," he said after a moment of sifting through his thoughts. He did, even if he still had that nagging thought in the back of his head he was trying to squash. Maybe this would help. "I didn't meant to find it, I was putting your clothes on the couch and it fell out of your jacket." It wasn't like he'd been snooping or anything. The only reason Dean would go into Don Juan's jacket was for a smoke, but even then, they each had their own pack upstairs, so even that was a stretch.

He waited a beat, trying to lay down the boundary gently. "Maybe next time just leave it somewhere else."

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Dean believed him. Don Juan tried not to look too visibly relieved, because he didn't want to give them impression that he'd been lying about it, but... well, honestly, had the roles been reversed, Don Juan wasn't sure that he would have believed himself. He didn't have an excellent track record when it came to being upfront about these kinds of things. The last time they'd been together, he had always suspected that Dean didn't believe him even when he happened to be telling the truth. In fairness he didn't know whether Dean actually believed him now or whether he was just saying that, but there wasn't much he could do about it if that was the case.

"Right. Of course," he said. He moved towards the table, intending to sweep it up and slip it into his trouser pockets — somewhat thoughtlessly, acting more on the impulse to get it off the table and out of sight and out of the conversation. He had not thought far enough ahead to think what he would do with it once it was in his pocket again, or to realize that this was only kicking the can down the road in terms of it being in the way since he seldom went through a night at Dean's with his pants still on.

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MJ made this <3

Dean stepped forward as Don Juan did, almost without thinking, to intercept. "Why don't I take care of it." He suggested lightly. Dean wasn't sure what else to do with it, maybe dump it down the drain or something, but some small part of him wondered if maybe removing the temptation was for the better. He didn't want to think Don Juan was going to stock pile things just in case the New Year's effects wore off, but he wasn't not thinking that either.

And he hated himself for it, more than a little bit.

Picking the vial up off the table, he tried to think through what to do with it, but was coming up short. At the moment all he could think to do was tuck it away and deal with it another time, so that's what he did. Stepping out of the kitchen, he put it in the drawer of the sideboard to be dealt with tomorrow and resumed his position in the doorway, trying to visibly relax. "What did you come up with for food?" He decided for a change of subject.

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